Adapting to climate change - how do poor people cope?

Climate change will increase the gaps between developed and developing countries, in terms of wealth, health and food security. This will make achieving goals to reduce poverty more difficult.

Poor people with few assets cannot easily recover from climate disasters or change how they make their living. They rely heavily on agriculture, fisheries, rivers and forests. These resources could change drastically with climate change, making these groups much more vulnerable than wealthier people. Additional factors, such as health problems and unsafe housing, make poor people even more vulnerable.

Research by Practical Action in the UK shows that efforts to reduce poverty can also help people to adapt to climate change. Climate change increases poverty because it can cause major changes to natural resources, which many poor people rely upon for food and income. The threats from climate change include large natural disasters and the risks from slower changes to the climate. International programmes to reduce climate change are important, for example the Kyoto negotiations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

However, adaptation requires governments to support local programmes and provide poor communities with the information and skills they need to plan for changes. Many countries have begun to develop National Adaptation Plans of Action. These identify priorities for action and then plan for impacts affecting a country’s most vulnerable areas, livelihood sectors and groups. For example, they might identify flooding as a priority, in coastal areas and plan for impacts on fisheries and fishermen. Local programmes must: train people to make use of new information, technology and infrastructure help people to expand the ways they make a living, and rely less on one strategy that may be lost due to climate change combine poverty reduction activities with natural resources management and disaster risk management programmes. This will help create practical solutions that are developed locally.

Industrialised countries are largely responsible for climate change but people in developing countries are most affected. People in developed nations are, to a large extent, protected from climate change and natural disasters by their governments, insurance and wealth. Developed nations are therefore responsible for reducing the effects of climate change, compensating poor countries for the damage they suffer because of climate change and for the costs of adaptation. Adapting to climate change must be a part of all development policies, including the Millennium Development Goals. Adaptation should not be planned and financed as a separate policy or programme.

The most effective way to adapt is to reduce poverty and help people to lessen their vulnerability to climate disasters and change. All project risk assessments should include climate change information and ensure that their interventions are ‘climate-proof’. For example, new enterprises and housing developments should be assessed for risk from climate change.